It's Winter here in Tropical North Queensland, and we've just harvested our annual crop of fresh ginger, and whilst we've dehydrated a large percentage of it, and ground it in the spice grinder to make the most fragrant ginger spice imaginable, the pink-tipped young ginger pieces reminded me that I must make this very gingery cake. I've been working on perfecting this recipe for a long time, and now I'm very happy with the result. I hope you love it too.
Red plums are in season at the moment and they are perfect for making this very special cake. However in North Queensland, unfortunately it's a short season and they aren't available for long. This cake makes an incredibly delicious dessert, or is perfect to serve if friends are coming over for coffee, or even have it ready for Easter, which will be upon us before we know it.
When I baked this brilliant batch of Apple Cinnamon Muffins, it was the perfect homecoming gift after 3 months away, to myself and Mr. HRK. Baking to me says welcome home. I gave some away to visiting friends and neighbours, because this recipe makes a dozen, and they were all gone in two days. So delicious!
Emelia Jackson in her latest book, "First, cream the butter and the sugar" has developed this glorious chai tea flavoured cake, it's a Chai spiced Pear Cake. It's absolutely delicious with a very tender crumb, and was a pleasure to make this week. I'm delighted to be able to share the cake making process with you, at last. Thanks Emelia.
This Cream Cheese Carrot Bundt Cake designed by Donna Hay, is filled with an irresistible cream cheese frosting, the same frosting which is generally reserved for icing the cake with and which everyone loves. Instead, we have baked it in the middle of the cake, where it transforms into the dreamiest, lemony cheesecake filling. Combined with sweet, grated carrot and chopped pecans or walnuts, and generously spiced with ground cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, this cake will also make a delicious dessert.
This is a stunning fruit dessert, inspired by the Savoy region in France. It consists of the simplest ingredients and is delicious despite containing no wine, but it will pair beautifully with your best bottle of dessert wine or sticky. It really is an exercise in simplicity, with pears, butter, cream, sugar, a vanilla bean, and that's all. The pears cook to perfection, surrounded by the most delicious sauce. This is a French recipe so there's no shortage of beautiful butter. Thanks Stephanie Alexander for the inspiration to take the humble pear to the next level for dessert. It's interesting that Stephanie in her acclaimed cookbook, "Cook's Companion" doesn't provide any illustrations for most of her recipes but she doesn't need to, her reputation speaks for itself. There are photos on her website though.
Date and Walnut Loaf is quite a classic loaf cake to bake, and I've given this a subtle Middle Eastern flavour by adding Baharat spice powder instead of Mixed Spice, and I've also added a dessertspoon of cocoa to bring an added depth of flavour and colour to the loaf.
Even though this is one of the healthiest biscuit recipes I have ever baked, it is also one of the most delicious.
These gluten free, Almond Flour Peanut Butter cookies or biscuits will be ready to eat within 20 minutes, and I promise you that no-one will be able to resist them. When life gets busy, but a sweet treat is still needed, I bake biscuits, and Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are one of the most delicious combinations you will find. These are perfect to have on hand over the weekend, although this recipe makes 36 cookies, too many for us, so I have given some of the batch away to friends. We all have friends and relatives who are gluten intolerant, and I wanted to know I could produce a quick batch of biscuits for them if necessary. I am really happy with the crisp texture of these biscuits, and they are also very satisfying and quite filling to eat. This recipe is from the Marcellina in Cucina blog, she is also a North Queensland girl like me, and I like to follow what she is doing.
Speaking of North Queensland, we are very lucky to have one of our very talented home grown Opera singers, Paul Ettore Tabone back in Australia from London. Paul Ettore Tabone, the tenor from Oz. In between his Australian shows and performances, he and his partner are living with Paul's Italian parents on their sugarcane farm near Ingham. Paul finished his UK opera season last March with Phantom of the Opera in London, where he played Ubaldo Piangi for four years, until the coronavirus lockdown drew the curtain at Her Majesty's Theatre in London to a close. Meanwhile their loss is our gain, as Mr. HRK and I attended his concert at our nearby Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music here in Mackay recently and it was just lovely. Paul was at his best, vocally. Director of the CQCM, Professor Judith Brown was the piano accompanist for Paul and their synergy on stage is extraordinary.
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| Paul Ettore Tabone at Her Majesty's Theatre in London |
I feel quite an attachment to Paul and his career, as when he was a Music Theatre student here in Mackay at the CQCM, part of my role at the Central Queensland University Library was as the Music and Performing Arts Librarian at the CQCM, and Paul was a student for 3 years during this period so by the end of the three years I knew him quite well. As with most small regional universities, one of the benefits is that staff develop a rapport with their students. It is so rewarding now to see him achieving on the world stage of opera and music theatre. If I've piqued your interest about Paul's career, he is in Australia to start rehearsing for the Sydney season of Phantom of the Opera, which hopefully will go ahead sooner rather than later. He also mentioned they are hoping for an outdoor performance of the show at Sydney Harbour. If you happened to watch the Rugby Union match in Townsville last Saturday Night, at Queensland Country Bank Stadium between Australia and Argentina, either on the TV or were actually at the match, you would have seen Paul sing the Australian National Anthem, Advance Australia Fair, and ending on a beautiful high note.. How's that for an impressive introduction to a football match.
Cook's notes:
From the start, apologies for any duplication here and in the actual recipe. I have lots of little tips to take in when baking these,and I don't want you to miss them.
Ingredients:
MAKES 36 BISCUITS
2 1/4 cups almond flour
1 cup peanut butter (smooth or crunchy), stir well in bottle before measuring to include the oils
1 egg
3/4 cup castor sugar, or superfine white
1/2 cup (4 oz/115 grams) unsalted butter (softened)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup chocolate chips (plus more for decorating)
Method:
Preheat your oven to 180 deg. C/350 deg F.
Line two large baking trays with baking paper.
Add the almond flour and baking powder to a bowl and whisk to remove any lumps.
Add the softened butter, peanut butter,and sugars to your electric mixing bowl. Beat until it becomes nice and creamy. This combination creams up beautifully.
Add the beaten egg and the vanilla extract then beat again until completely combined.
Remove bowl from the electric mixer, and stir in the almond flour and baking powder mixture.
Add the chocolate chips, and stir through. The mixture will form a ball in your bowl.
Using a small biscuit/cookie scoop, select scoops of dough and place on the baking paper allowing room for spreading. or if you don't have a cookie scoop, roll a heaped teaspoonful of dough into small balls and place on the baking sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes until lightly browned. However check at 8 minutes that they aren't burning, this all depends on how hot your oven is. They might even need 12 minutes. Leave to slightly cool on the baking tray before removing to the cooling rack using a knife to lift them.They will crisp up as they cool.
Enjoy your week,
Warm wishes,
Pauline
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| The secret ingredient |
These cakes are a celebration of citrus fruits in season, a tangy theme running through my sweets baking this Winter.
Fill these little lovelies with lemon or lime curd, dust with some sifted icing sugar, garnish with a slice of dehydrated cumquat, (optional of course) and sit back and enjoy with fresh cream or yoghurt, depending on the time of day. Lemons and limes have been abundant this Winter, and quite interchangeable when cooking sweets.
This is a rustic style cake, with the warm and sweet Middle Eastern flavours of freshly ground nutmeg exciting the senses, and the soft, moist crumb making it a joy to eat. It's a very clever cake, as a crusty base is created by half of the dry mixture, and then the rest of the wet cake mixture when added to the cake tin is topped with chopped walnuts.
This isn't a pretty cake to photograph, but it's a cinch to make and absolutely delicious to eat with a cup of espresso coffee or a pot of tea. I urge you to give it a try. It's a real keeper.
I found this cake recipe in The Mackay Whitsunday Anglican School Recipe book called "Tastebud Ticklers", collated by teachers, parents and students of the school, and published back in 1994. There are so many great recipes in this book, and this one has stood the test of time. The recipe book was assembled as a fund raiser as they generally are, and the Principal of the school at the time, Mr. Ron Bourne, famously said that if the book was published and actually raised some money he would walk to Sarina, just an hour by car down the road from Mackay and back again. Well none of us remember him actually doing that, but it was a successful project, and some of the parents still refer to it and cook from it as I just have.
I hadn't looked at this book for quite a while before I made this cake, but just now as I was flicking through the pages again, I found my original Golden Syrup Dumplings recipe in there. I had forgotten that this was the recipe I contributed to the book, and I had since lost the original of this recipe, true story. In 1994, I started a new job, so I am pretty amazed that I found the time to even contribute to this recipe book let alone remember that I did. Wow, what a find, because Golden Syrup Dumplings are a favourite of ours in Winter, and I have since used other recipes which Mr. HRK and I have humbly thought weren't as good as my original. My lost recipe has been found, and I have to tell you I am pretty excited. So needless to say dear readers, this dumpling dessert will be back on the menu again at home, and will hopefully be published on the blog, one cold wintry day, so watch this space.
For now though this story is really about the Armenian Nutmeg cake, originally contributed to the book by Norelle Millen. Thanks Norelle.
Ingredients:
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup milk
2 cups self raising flour or ( 2 cups plain flour and 4 teaspoons of baking powder)
1 egg at room temperature
1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
4 oz butter (113 grams) chopped into pieces
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
METHOD:
Combine the sugar, sifted flour and nutmeg, and rub in butter. Place half the mixture into a well greased 20 cm or 8 inch spring form tin.
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Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in warm milk and pour this into the remaining mixture. Add beaten egg and mix well.
Pour the wet mixture over base in the cake tin evenly and sprinkle with walnuts.
Bake for 50-60 minutes in a moderate oven. Mine cooked in 40 minutes and is very moist. Each oven is different in cooking time.
Pauline
It's Winter, we're loving the change of season, and hot delicious beef pies are always popular here in tropical North Queensland when the weather turns so chilly. It's been down to 5 degrees the last two mornings, however the days are sunny and sublime but still cool. I made a dozen Beef Pot Pies last week, it was an easy way to feed 11 people, with one left for us for lunch the following day. Tennis players are hungry people. It's a pleasure to be in the kitchen right now, however I am torn, as the garden is also calling me for attention, and the beautiful sunshine outside is demanding to be enjoyed. This post is part of the monthly In My Kitchen series, a global event, hosted by the lovely Sherry from Sherry's Pickings. I hope you enjoy it.
I used my Aussie Beef Saltbush Stew recipe to make the these Beef Pot Pies. I kilo of beef chuck steak cooked up beautifully in the slow cooker, and was the perfect amount for 12 pies. I topped the meat up with some separately sauteed mushrooms, and they were delicious. The red wine I added just might have helped as well. Luckily I have 12 matching white ceramic dishes, so I spooned the beef filling into the dishes, and then used bought puff pastry to cover them. Normally I would make my own shortcrust pastry, but I had a sticky date pudding to cook as well so I took a shortcut with the pastry. They were delicious. I used an egg wash of beaten egg and a little bit of milk, so that they browned up as required. Here's the link to the Beef Stew recipe if you missed it before. I posted about my Sticky date pudding quite a few years ago when I was new to blogging, and that post needs updating, however I use that recipe all the time, it's delicious. Here's the Sticky Date Pudding link.
These are the photos of the Beef Pot Pies being cooked and assembled.
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| Ready for cooking in the Slow Cooker |
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| Waiting for the Puff Pastry |
In my last post about my Greek Inspired Cauliflower, I mentioned a Speed Peeler, and asked if anyone had one or had heard of it. The reason was that Jamie Oliver mentioned one in his Cauliflower recipe that I had based my recipe on. No-one seems to have heard of it. Well no surprises that when I googled it, a speed peeler is one of Jamie's kitchenware products, available on sale at Woolworths here in Australia, probably in the UK and other countries too. I'm not rushing out to buy one as I think my vegetable peelers do a great job, and I think I might have bought one like this before during my long culinary vegetable peeler purchasing history, which has since broken as they all eventually seem to do, for me anyway.
Here is the link to the infamous 3 in one Speed Peeler if you want to take a look.
Jamie Oliver 3 In 1 Speed Peeler Each | Woolworths. Mystery solved.
I've also been doing a little bit of online shopping, and bought a 12 cup Mini Bundt Pan from Kitchen Warehouse. I still have to try this tray out, but I have a nice little bundt cake recipe in mind which I was so excited about when I first saw it. It might have to wait in the queue though until after the holidays.
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| Freshly picked rosellas |
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| Rosellas still on the bush |
Firstly the Cooks note: This recipe makes 4 large flatbreads, however if you prefer them smaller like pita bread, cut the dough into 8 portions.
If you can't find Greek style yoghurt, use regular yoghurt and reduce the water in the recipe to 1 1/4 cups.
The flatbreads also make crispy and delicious bases for pizza. The smaller ones are excellent as pita or pocket breads.
Use plenty of plain flour when you are rolling out the flatbreads to prevent them sticking to the bench, and use a floured rolling pin
Ingredients:
(No oil needed to cook)
4 cups Plain Flour
1 sachet (7 grams or .25 ounce) active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C, if you are pedantic, we're not)
1/2 cup Greek-style yoghurt
1 tablespoon white sugar
1/2 tablespoon salt (the original recipe used 1 tablespoon but we thought it was slightly too salty, up to you)
Method:
1. Dissolve the yeast, sugar and salt in a small bowl with the warm water. Add the water and the yoghurt to the flour and mix well. The dough will be nice and soft but not sticky. Tip the dough onto a lightly floured bench and shape it into a ball.
Now cover the dough with a damp cloth and allow it to rise at room temperature for 3 hours. ( We place ours in the warm laundry, where our hot water system happens to be, and close the door, and it sure did rise!)
2. Cut the dough into four triangular portions. Shape the dough into rounds and flatten each round on a well floured bench as though you are making pizza dough. We flattened ours out further with a floured rolling pin so that it was a larger and thinner flatbread and it was perfect.
3. To cook your flatbread, choose either the BBQ or a cast iron skillet. As Mr. HRK was cooking, he chose to use a pizza stone in the BBQ, which worked like a dream. Preheat the BBQ or stove to a medium-heat. Place one round of dough on the BBQ or skillet and bake until the brown spots on the bottom, about 1 minute. Flip the bread and bake for another minute. Remove the bread and wrap it up in a clean tea towel to keep warm. We separated them with baking paper like you do with pancakes in case they stuck together with humidity around, but it really wasn't necessary.
For the whole Turkish Feast backstory about these pizza bases you can find it by clicking on this link:
Oh did I forget to give you the score from the game on Wednesday? Well it was an annihilation by New South Wales over Queensland, however the food in our kitchen was great. Better luck for the next match hopefully, always optimistic.
It's been a busy week's cooking with the pie dinner last Friday night, then Mahjong was on Tuesday afternoon at my place so I made one of my favourite cakes. A generous neighbour gave me some lovely, juicy limes from their backyard tree, so I baked my Lime Syrup and Coconut Cake, you can click on this link for the recipe. Always a favourite, served with yoghurt,
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| Delicious and tangy Lime Syrup and Coconut Cake |
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| Cooking the lime syrup |
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| Grating the lime zest |
